There were times when the 68th Venice Film Festival felt like you'd been hit over the head with a plank of wood: everywhere you looked, you saw stars. In the lobby of the Hotel Excelsior on my first day, I spotted Talking Heads' David Byrne - here on the jury alongside such luminous American filmmakers as Todd Haynes and Darren Aronofsky - staring intently at his phone. From Gary Oldman to Gwyneth Paltrow, from Matt Damon to Madonna, the red carpet was chock-a-block with A-list talent.

Which makes it surprising that none of the North American entries - five in total, six if you include David Cronenberg's Germany/Canada co-production of his Freud/Jung tale A Dangerous Method - earned a major prize. It was as if Aronofsky, a previous Golden Lion winner with The Wrestler, was deliberately going against the grain by choosing Aleksandr Sokurov's Faust for the top prize. The Russian director's interpretation of Goethe's tragedy proved as heavy going as it was heavyweight.

Until the awards, the consensus of opinion was split between Roman Polanski's Carnage and Steve McQueen's Shame. Carnage is a brisk four-hander about morals and marriage, with superb turns from Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz. Shame is Briton McQueen's follow-up to his acclaimed debut Hunger. The portrait of a New York-based exec suffering from sex addiction won Michael Fassbender best actor.